Welcome Fashionable Freaks to another review done by your most hated of reviewers, me, Darren! I know you’re all waiting for me to begin lashing at this comic like there is no tomorrow. Lets get down to the nitty gritty as Allan is my most loathed of comic types. It’s an Autobiography comic! I bet each of you can hear my teethe grinding through the HTML even now. So lets get this shoot out under way.

Allan is an Autobiography comic done by Allan Wood which has been going on since February of 2007. It followed the life and adventures of a young high school Allan back then, (yes folks i read all 800 something comics), but now goes on with Allan in college, working, and living with his girl friend. I must say the beginning of Allan was quite enjoyable, but as time passed the youthful spunk and wondrous adventures of teenage hormones, and strange women turned into a kind of ‘this is what i did today’ strip. I am not saying that Allan doesn’t have an occasional funny strip. I am simply saying his life doesn’t seem to have the same sense of fun and hi·jinks it used to. Whether this is due in part to the boy growing up into a man slowly, (and lord knows that was a fun experience for us all), or because he is holding back parts of his life I could not tell you. What I will say that if Allan were to make a book, I’d probably get the first 2 books and then forget the next series.
That is all I really have to say about the writing as it is an Autobiography comic. Which means it’s pretty self explanatory.

Now onwards to the art. Allan’s art for his comic is super simplistic. So simplistic that it looks like a slight step up from stick figures. The characters are more or less simple shapes put together to make a person. This is surprising as I have looked at some of the artwork which Allan can do and its damn good. I’m not saying the quirky simplistic style is bad, I’m simply saying he can do better… and in some cases has in fact DONE better. Whether he has chosen to keep his simplistic style as an artistic choice, or out of laziness, (and lets face it I’ve done shit art to make a dead line), but I wish there was some way to say to Allan, ‘hey, I know you can do better work. So why don’t you?’ without sounding like an asshole. Let’s face it though, I don’t care if I sound like an asshole.

Now I know I usually sit here and gripe about the why’s to not read a comic, but I’ll be honest. The begining of Allan I rather liked, and though his work has changed drasticly since he has left High School for College and the real world. I would rather people sit and give it a try. It’s not a bad comic. Not by any means. I just feel like the comic is lacking something currently.

Again everyone, I would like to remind you that Fashionably Challenged Comics is not here to create flame wars. We are simply here to express how we feel about comics, give them further exposure, and to give them a little feedback that we feel may be helpful. If you don’t like it we will gladly hear your opinions, and will let you express them fully. After all this is the internet, and we’re not weeping sand-encrusted vagina faces.

This has been yet another Darren review. I think it’s time I had a drink

This is what updates look like. Try to get used to them, and try to keep up kiddo.

Today I am taking a few precious moments out of my busy schedule(drinking, playing video games, telling Darren I’m going to draw a comic while I’m really playing video games, lifting weights during loading times, and crafting items out of duct tape) to bring you all ANOTHER review. Today’s victim is Scout Crossing. Created by Scott Ferguson, it was originally pitched to me as “like scott pilgrim with indie/scene references” and we all know how much of Scott Pilgrim fan I am. Well, actually you probably don’t, so to sum it up, I pretty much spent most of last year getting drunk and rereading the entire series, over and over. But anyways, I found that description to be pretty fair, though it has it’s own unique standout points.

While the story isn’t far along, it is shaping up well. Following the main character, Scott Crossing, through a story somehow related to his older brother’s death is intriguing, the completed comics leaving me wanting to know more about what happened in the past, and what is going to happen in the future. There is action, a potential for romance, crazy super-powered tattoos, dying scene kids, and at least one insult to Nickelback to date. So there isn’t much to complain about as far as the writing goes. I’ve been fairly happy in that department.

The art is very refreshing and original to the eyes. It took several comics to begin to settle into it’s own style, but when it did… I enjoy the art of this comic immensely. The art by itself would be reason enough for me to continue to check up on this comic. One of the comics was a “Making Of” style comic, and scanning in crumpled paper to use as a background or for textures was mentioned, which I would have never thought of, and is used to amazing success within the comic. I find the art highly enjoyable and completely unique. I could nitpick stylistic influence if I wanted to, but I don’t want to.

I look forward to seeing more of this story. I couldn’t determine any sort of update schedule, but the artist is responsible for three comics that I saw, so I can’t hold not having a regular update schedule against him. My only other complaint would be the empty “About” page, but that has a lot more to do with being a reviewer than anything else, as it’s a easy place for me to find all the artist’s info generally. Anyways, I’m off to find a comic I don’t like now, since I feel that you all will get the wrong impression of me as a reviewer if I only review comics I like. Hopefully the other two slackers will start picking up some reviews soon also.

What do you get when you mix equal parts of cynicism, simple joys of life, statements on society, humour, love for Canada, music, geekiness, everything else good in the world, and a stiking good-looking Polack? If you answered “YOU PHYLL! YOU!” you would in fact be correct, though I was talking about Peter Chiykowski’s Rock, Paper, Cynic. It is an amazing comic that I stumbled across a few days ago, and have been enjoying thoroughly. And by enjoy thoroughly, I mean I have been using it as an excuse to not to my work for classes, or work on the revamp of my own comic. But it is good, I promise. On to the boring review things where I don’t have much opportunity to pretend to be clever, or stroke my own ego.

Rock, Paper, Cynic is a webcomic that also releases music “now-and-then” while updating biweekly, on Mondays and Fridays. The art style ranges from charmingly simple, to photographs and digitally edited photographs, with the occasional wall of text. The humour ranges from easily accessible to jokes that I feel like I may have been the only person to laugh at, though I mean that in a good way.

With no story or narrative lasting more than a few comics in a row, there isn’t much I can talk about there. The charm and wit seeps through in most of the comics, so I happily can do without any sense of narrative in this situation. The sometimes introspective comics make me happy, but I am a brooding little moody bitch. My only major complaint for the comic would be that sometimes the font is a little hard to read, but that may just be me… I’m known to get weird about fonts though.

Overall, this has been an amazingly entertaining and insightful read for me. Comes with the Phyll stamp of approval. Show some love to the Canadian. They do it better on top.

In other news, FCW has been superbusy, seemingly doing nothing. Cory finally got a job, Darren is preparing to go back to school, and I have been working on getting various webcomic projects going again, and with school. If nothing else, I will be trying to maintain the site a little better, at the sacrifice of my own hard work(and possibly some goats). We will be updating more, if you have any comics that you would like reviewed, you can personally email them to me at bottledgraffiti@gmail.com, or find whatever the official FCW email is on contact page, but as of this moment I would probably just email me if I was you. That is it for now, hopefully I’ll have more charm to ooze at you all in a couple days…

Twitter friends of the Fcwebcomics account who actually talk to us are all in for a treat. In the next few reviews I will be reviewing our friends we talk to on twitter. People who care enough to chat with us about random shit we really do appreciate. So I am going to make my next handful of reviews to be mostly our buddies as a way to say thank you. Anyways, on with the show!

IDK comics is a strange webcomic, or at least I think some people may think it is upon first look. Maybe it is indeed weird to you, maybe not, but it’s not “normal. At first glance you’ll see the influence of other webcomic’s like XKCD and Cyanide and happiness. While the influence is definitely for sure there(they mention it in their “about” section) this webcomic shows throughout that it is indeed different in many ways. The best way to describe it is a black and white metaphor joke comic. This is not slapstick gag’s, this is dark humor, so don‘t expect to get the pg-13, Adam Sandler comedy here. The story deals mostly with depression, relationships, and school. It follows no storyline really but it does resolve around the same characters… err, puzzle pieces (more about this in a second). The story’s are sometimes crude and messed up in ways that may turn some people away from it. Personally I call those people unfunny but whatever, if you don‘t like that kind of comedy then don‘t read. The about section on the home page for this comic says “IDK Comics is actually a strange byproduct of bi-polar/depression” and I believe it. As someone who needs to vent feelings in many creative outlets I really see this as being that venting for the writer. The whole comic run has a tone of seriousness that I am all to aware of, the putting your personal feelings on a stage for people to read or listen to or watch or whatever…

The art is what makes this comic standout more than anything though, and no it’s not vibrant color or intense detail that does it. This comic has jokes about shaking babies for gods sake… I think a full color comic would take away from the story’s dark, moody feeling. I am of course talking about the fact that humans are rarely drawn in this comic, the characters are instead puzzle pieces… Very abstract indeed. Once again in the about me section(http://easiersaid.net/?page_id=616) … it says “I wanted IDK to be abstract! Not just because I’m a bad artist, but I felt that by being abstract that I could connect to people better because they would put all the pieces together and see bits of themselves in the final picture. Pun/metaphor intended. Some have told me that it alienates the reader because they want a person/face to connect with; instead I want the reader to connect with themselves.” The puzzle pieces add more to the metaphor of the entire comic. Besides the puzzle pieces the art is pretty simple, it ain’t a fucking masterpiece, but like so many webcomics before it doesn’t have to be to be good.

The thing I think I like most about the comic is that it leaves it self open for interpretation, and it lets you draw your own conclusions/ feelings. It’s not beating you down with a certain message or story, it’s letting you read it then make something out of it that others may not see. I think everyone can see them selves as a puzzle piece from time to time, trying to fit into a bigger picture.

So it’s been a few reviews for me now on the site, and I am kind of trending on doing a webcomic on subjects I like. I have done one on films, complete randomness, an autobiographical one, and one on sex of course. All these things I love a ton for sure, but I still haven’t done one on my most favorite thing in the world… Music! So I thought I would look for a nice music comic to review and all would be nice, so off to the webcomics list to find the first one that popped up and caught my eye. Somehow after searching I saw a webcomic called simply “anarchy.” I was after all searching for music webcomics so I figured it would be about some dudes who were into the 80’s uk punk scene or whatever. I found out soon enough that this was not in the least a webcomic about music. My dumbass didn’t even contemplate the fact that this could mean anarchy as in the literal sense. If you’re looking for a music webcomic you’re not getting it this week, but you’re still getting a decent webcomic to check out. This one also has to get the “mature” reading rant real quim although for completely different reasons than Oglaf got. This book is full of foal langauge from start to finish(awesome!) and is loaded with violence(double awesome!)

Anarchy is a “printed” comic style webcomic. Each comic is like a page from a printed comic you would find at your local comicbook retailer. The panel layout definatly is reminiscent of the 90’s alterntaive comics from image and dark horse. The storyline is semi basic (thus far) and may sound very familiar to you because this comic isn’t just like Sin City in a lot of ways… it IS Sin City in a lot of ways. That doesn’t exactly make it a bad comic because I like Sin City, but the comparisons are ridiculous. This comic takes place in a “gritty city” where gangs run amuck, it follows the narrative of one person at a time. Deep Metaphors and badass-ness fill every line from the characters. The art is black and white with a few solid colors that stick out vibrantly. The characters are mostly vogue types, city dwellers with foal mouths and are great with a sword for some reason.

Not a lot to really say here because the comic is only 25 pages long with plans for what looks like more chapters, but since the comic has not updated since the summer of 2009 I am not sure if it ever will. I hope it does eventually because I would like to see the story go on. Like I said this is almost entirely a Sin City knock off but that’s not bad to me and I would like to see that maybe if this story continues on maybe it would break into its own story. I have a feeling the writer was going for a “sin city” meets a “superhero” comic story eventually and if that’s the case I would love to see how it turns out. Anyways it’s worth the 15 minutes to read the 25 pages of chapter one, a great break from the normal webcomic repetitive-ness.

Hello everyone and thank you for reading our sorry excuse of a website! Just thought I would give a quick and simple update on what’s going down in the fashionably challenged world. Like I said to start too, we really appreciate anyone who reads this. Please leave comments whether you think we suck or not.

When we started doing this whole thing a couple of months ago, we started off with two simple goals to see if we could achieve them. First thing was the podcast, second was the reviews. We have taken care of both those things pretty well and only plan on doing them better and more frequent. With those two things “all good’n the hood” if you will, we are looking for new additions to the site. New articles/ things/ features/ nude photo’s… well okay maybe not that but anything else is cool. I figure what better way to figure out what we need to do than to ask the people who actually read this what we could do to make us better. I got some basics that will be coming very soon… some banners and other media, a forum (eventually), better site layout…. it’s all in the works for this year.

I also thought I would take requests for a little while on webcomics you maybe want to see a review for, after all there is a number of ways to get ahold of us (which I will get to in a second) so here is the chance for you guys to get some real honest critics to tell you what they think of your work.

fcwebcomics@gmail.com is our email and yes I check it every other day.

Consider this a warning: The talk from here on out through this review and pretty much every review or article we do will involve some foul language and some topics you may not like or be comfortable with.

Well It had to be done eventually ladies and gentlemen, so I figured why not me!? I mean it is my turn for a review, I have no shame and am offended by nothing, and damnit I just don’t care what other people say about me. So I am writing the first review for an “ADULT” webcomic. As in sex, nipples, dicks, erotica, double penitration, donkey shows, and good old fashioned fucking. As in if you’re a person under the age of 18, being an adult I should probably tell you not to click any of the links from here on in. If you’re at work and reading this then A) thank you for risking getting fired to read us on the clock and B) the links are very NSFW so be ready to click off if the boss comes around the cubical. This shit is about to get sexy…

Now adult webcomics are plentiful to say the least, but I would say out of every genre of webcomic I have encountered it is also the genre that has the lowest batting average of being any good at all. Being honest here, people love their porn and any comic with drawn boobies is going to garner some site traffic. I mean it’s just the way of our society. As a man who loves boobs as much as the next guy, I can honestly say that shitty sex comics with drawn tits that garner huge profits without a story or a joke seriously pisses me off. Talk about a cheap way to cash in on all the 14 year old anime fans who just love seeing Sailor moon fuck pikachu for no reason… Still though there is merit to the genre. I have read at least ten titles of the genre that are very decent with an amazing story to match the erotica. Luckily for us as well is this title is absolutely one of those titles in the good section.

Oglaf by Bodil Bodilson (or like I stated above, whomever does the comic) is an adult/comedy comic set sometime in the middle ages. The world looks sort of like lord of the rings, with beasts, and witches (err.. Mistresses). The story doesn’t truly revolve around just one character, it jumps around from place to place showing different stories in a world that’s so vivid, yet soooo fucking strange and weird.

Let’s focus on the art first off since most of you are probably wondering how great the tits look. The art is terrific, I mean it’s full color which is awesome and really makes the world look vibrant. The color used for some of the demons (the fire and ice demons come to mind) really make them memorable to me. The style is simple, it looks like very traditional cartoon style to me, but in a very well done manner. I feel bad for the comics I got to do reviews for because I know abso-fucking-nothing about art and one of the people who helped found this site is a art major… but anyway as a casual fan of art I find this to be great art. Another thing I enjoyed about the art was the facial expressions used throughout, one thing I do really love when someone is good at is facial expression. It’s like you’re really there in the world… sucking a beasts dick yourself!

Story wise the comic does something a little different than most others. It works on short storylines usually about 2-5 comics in length, then it changes to another story in a different place in the world, and eventually comes back to the other characters in the other story somewhere down the line. It works out nicely for fans of both the long term story line and people who may want to get a quick laugh or gag. Most comics end on some sort of punch line(that usually involves some dude getting fucked in the ass) but there is the occasional transition comic that helps set the story up better. The plot is a bit everywhere so I won’t even go through it here but most of the stories involve funny situations with the characters in sexual ways.

Now as much as I enjoyed this comic I really can’t recommend it to everyone for obvious reasons. First off this isn’t for the kids, as much as I don’t care what most people do I could see this comic fucking with a eight year old. Next off it’s not for the uptight people who would freak out with some depicted gay sex, because there is a fuck load of it in this comic. As far as everything else goes though, I would recommend it to people who may be skeptical about reading something like this. I find that in the end the story and comedy can over power the straight erotica of the book. Don’t get me wrong though, if you’re looking for some hot shit to go down you’ll that as well. Besides that though I think anyone who is like me, I shameless pervert who likes some immature humor. Read up kiddies and whether you wear pants or not is up to you!